Garmin Vivofit Jr 2 Kid Mode Update – News | GadFit

December 8, 2017

Garmin just rolled out an update for the Vivofit Jr 2 that allows the activity tracker to work on your kids phone or tablet, along with yours.

The update doesn’t independently install the Vivofit Jr app on your kids’ mobile devices, it still requires permission from the parents. Since I received the update, I’ll list the steps and new features here:

Download Vivofit Jr app to kid’s mobile device

Sign into parents account

Enable Kid Mode in App settings

You can then choose to allow your child to check off chores and redeem awards with or without approval via Touch ID or a 4 digit pass code.

The latest move might come as a surprise given the successful original Vivofit Jr 1 didn’t bring about such a feature for an entire year of use. I’m speculating the latest update to allow the Vivofit Jr 2 to work near-independently on the kid’s mobile device could be attributed to a few factors.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that children are accessing mobile devices at a younger age. As such, it’s only natural to transfer part ownership to the kids and bring about more engagement.

Secondly, the child might be eager to check their own progress or clock that reward for redemption immediately after school instead of waiting for the parents to be around. So they can try to redeem their rewards for a chore done and the parents can remotely approve these redemption.

Without compromising the underlying principle of involving the entire family in encouraging the child to stay active, the Vivofit Jr series of trackers made stable steps towards increasing it’s usefulness and practical usability.

Just a month back, we hear about Germany banning children’s smart watches for fear that a lack of security might allow those devices to invade the child’s privacy. Garmin faces no such issues since their trackers doesn’t have any voice nor image recording features.

If you’re in the market shopping for a gift for a kid, the Vivofit Jr 2 is a good choice given Garmin has lobbed $30 off the retail price of $99.

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